Weekly Social Pulse, Week of 11-26

“Stories” Now on Every Major Social Media Platform: It’s appears 2019 will be the year of the “Story,” with LinkedIn and YouTube both now adding the content format to their primary platforms — joining Snap, Insta and Facebook as a way to share chronological, vertical, short-form content that disappears.

Instagram Combating Fake Follows and Engagement: This week Instagram announced it will use machine learning to identify fake followers, likes and comments from users using bots and apps to falsely increase their accounts and posts. If you see an profile’s follower accounts drop en masse, it’s not because that profile offended people, but most likely because the followers were fake.

Bye Bye YouTube Annotations: You know those annoying translucent pop-up boxes that interrupt video viewing on YouTube? As of January, they will disappear for good across the platform. Thankfully brands and user can still use Cards and End Screens to direct viewers to additional information. Use of annotations had decreased by 70 percent, which is likely because they ever worked well on mobile (and because they were annoying!).

We are loving the new “Like and Subscribe” series from Funny or Die. It features Skyy Goldwynne (Dillon Francis), as a Hollywood manager who locks four of his influencer clients in a house with a camera crew. Put this on your watchlist for the weekend.